The Main Chance Part 6

Evelyn felt a cold chill creeping over her, and swallowed hard in an effort to summon some word to meet this shock.

"Your social position," continued Miss Morris volubly, "and the prestige which you as a bachelor of arts have brought home from college, make you a most natural candidate."

"Destiny really seems to be pointing to you," said Mrs. Atherton, with coaxing sweetness in her tone.

"Oh, but I couldn't think of it!" exclaimed Evelyn, recovering her courage. "I have had no experience in such matters! Why, that would be politics!--and I have always felt,--it has seemed to me,--I simply can't consider it!"

She had gained her composure now. She had been called a bachelor of arts, and she felt an impulse to laugh.

"Ah! we had expected that it would seem strange to you at first," said Mrs. Atherton, who appeared to be in charge of the grand strategy of the call, while Miss Morris carried the rapid firing guns and Mrs. Wingate lent moral support, as of a sh.o.r.e battery.

Mrs. Atherton had risen.

"We have all set our hearts on it, and you must not decline. Think it over well, and when you come to the first meeting of the Council in September, you will, I am sure, be convinced of your duty."

"Yes; a very solemn obligation that wealth and education have laid upon you," Miss Morris amplified.

"A solemn obligation," echoed Mrs. Wingate.

The three filed out, Miss Morris leading the way, while Mrs. Atherton lingeringly covered their retreat with a few words that were intended to convey a knowledge of the summer frivolities then pending.

"I should be very glad to have you come to see me at my rooms," said Miss Morris, wheeling in her short skirt as she reached the door. "I have rooms in the aetna Building."

"Do come and see us, too," murmured the convoy, smiling in relief as they turned away.

Evelyn sat down in the nearest chair and laughed.

"I wonder whether they think college has made me like that?" she asked herself.

At dinner she gave her father a humorous account of the interview. Grant was away dining with a playmate and they were alone. Porter was in one of his perverse moods, and he began gruffly:

"I should like to know why not! Haven't I spent thousands of dollars on your education? The lady was right; you are, at least so I have understood, a bachelor of arts. Why a bachelor I'm sure I don't know--"

He was b.u.t.tering a bit of bread with deliberation and did not look at Evelyn, who waited patiently, knowing that he would have his whim out.

"It seems to me," he went on, "a proper recognition of your talents and education, and also of me, as one of the oldest citizens of Clarkson. I tell you it is good to get a little recognition once in a while. I have a painful recollection of having been defeated for School Commissioner about ten years ago. Now here's a chance for the family to redeem itself. Of course you accepted the nomination, and after your election I'll expect you to bring the school funds to my bank, and I'll say to you now that the directors will do the right thing by you."

He was still avoiding Evelyn's eyes, but his humor was growing impatient for recognition.

"Now, father!" she pleaded, and they laughed together.

"Father," she said seriously, "I don't want these people here to get an idea that I'm not an ordinary being."

"That's an astonishing statement," he began, ready for further banter; but she would not have it.

"There are," she said, "certain things that a woman ought to do, whether she's educated or not; and I have ideas about that. So you think these people here are expecting great things of me,--"

"Of course they are, and with reason," said Porter, still anxious to return to his joke.

"But I do not intend to have it! When I'm forty years old I may change my mind, but right now I want--"

She hesitated.

"Well, what do you want, child?" he said gently, with the fun gone out of his voice. They had had their coffee, and she sat with her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.

"Why, I'm afraid I want to have a good time," she declared, rising.

"And that's just what I want you to have, child," he said kindly, putting his arm about her as they went out together.

Evelyn declined the honor offered her by the local council, at long range, in a note to Doctor Morris, giving no reasons beyond her unfamiliarity with political and school matters. These she knew would not be considered adequate by Doctor Morris, but the latter, after writing a somewhat caustic reply, in which she dwelt upon the new woman's duties and responsibilities, immediately announced her own candidacy. The incident was closed as far as Evelyn was concerned and she was not again approached in the matter.

Her father continued to joke about it, and a few weeks later, when they were alone, referred to it in a way which she knew by experience was merely a feint that concealed some serious purpose. Men of Porter's age are usually clumsy in dealing with their own children, and Porter was no exception. When he had anything of weight on his mind to discuss with Evelyn, he brooded over it for several days before attacking her. His manner with men was easy, and he was known down town as a good bluffer; but he stood not a little in awe of his daughter.

"I suppose things will be gay here this winter," he said, as they sat together on the porch.

"About the same old story, I imagine. The people and their ways don't seem to have changed much."

"You must have some parties yourself. Better start them up early. Get some of the college girls out, and turn it on strong."

"Well, I shan't want to overdo it. I don't want to be a nuisance to you, and entertaining isn't as easy as it looks."

"It'll do me good, too," he replied. He fidgeted in his chair and played with his hat, which, however, he did not remove, but shifted from one side to the other, smoking his cigar meanwhile without taking it from his mouth. He rose and walked out to one of his sprinklers which had been placed too near the walk and kicked it off into the gra.s.s. She watched him with a twinkle in her eyes, and then laughed. "What is it, father?" she asked, when he came back to the porch.

"What's what?" he replied, with a.s.sumed irritation. He knew that he must now face the music, and grew composed at once.

"Well, it's this,--" with sudden decision.

"Yes, I knew it was something," she said, still laughing and not willing to make it too easy for him.

"You know the Knights of Midas are quite an inst.i.tution here--boom the town, and give a fall festival every year. The idea is to get the country people in to spend their money. Lots of tom-foolishness about it,--swords and plumes and that kind of rubbish; but we all have to go in for it. Local pride and so on."

"Yes; do you want me to join the Knights?"

"No, not precisely. But you see, they have a ball every year in connection with the festival, with a queen and maids of honor. I guess you've never seen one of these things, as they have them in October, and you've always been away at school. Now the committee on entertainment has been after me to see if you'd be queen of the ball this year--"

"Oh!--" ominously.

"Just hold on a minute." He was wholly at ease now, and a.s.sumed the manner which he had found effective in dealing with obstreperous customers of his bank. "I'm free to say that I don't like the idea of this myself particularly. There's a lot of publicity about it and you know I don't like that--and the newspapers make an awful fuss. But you see it isn't wise for us"--he laid emphasis on the p.r.o.noun--"to set up to be better than other people. Now", with a twinkle in his eye, "you turned down this School Board business the other day and said you wanted to have a good time, just like other girls, and I reckon most of the girls in town would be tickled at a chance like this--"

"And you want me to do it, father? Is that what you mean? But it must be perfectly awful,--the crowd and the foolish mummery."

"Well, there's one thing sure, you'll never have to do it a second time." Porter smiled rea.s.suringly.

"But I haven't said I'd do it once, father."

"I'd like to have you; I'd like it very much, and should appreciate your doing it. But don't say anything about it." Some callers were coming up the walk, so the matter was dropped. Porter recurred to the subject again next day, and Evelyn saw that he wished very much to have her take part in the carnival, but the idea did not grow pleasanter as she considered it. It was quite true, as she had told her father, that she wanted to enjoy herself after the manner of other young women, and without constant reference to her advantages, as she had heard them called; but the thought of a public appearance in what she felt to be a very ridiculous function did not please her. On the other hand, her father rarely asked anything of her and he would not have made this request without considering it carefully beforehand.

In her uncertainty she went for advice to Mrs. Whipple, the wife of a retired army officer, who had been her mother's friend. Mrs. Whipple was a woman of wide social experience and unusual common sense. She had settled in her day many of those distressing complications which arise at military posts in times of national peace. Young officers still came to her for advice in their love affairs, which she always took seriously, but not too seriously. Warry Raridan maintained unjustly that Mrs. Whipple's advice was bad, but that it did the soul good to see how much joy she got out of giving it. The army had communicated both social dignity and liveliness to Clarkson, as to many western cities which had military posts for neighbors. In the old times when civilians were busy with the struggle for bread and had little opportunity for social recreation, army men and women had leisure for a punctilious courtesy.

The mule-drawn ambulance was a picturesque feature of the urban landscape as it bore the army women about the rough streets of the new cities; it was not elegant, but it was so eminently respectable! There might be an occasional colonel that was a sn.o.b, or a major that drank too much; or a Mrs. Colonel who was a trifle too conscious of her rights over her sisters at the Post, or a Mrs. Major whose syntax was unbearable; but the stars and stripes covered them all, even as they cover worse people and worse errors in our civil administrators.